Tag Archives: Books

Eighth Doctor Adventures – Vampire Science

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Written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman.

Eighth Doctor Adventures book 2.

Spoiler-Free verdict: A pacey, character-driven romp that establishes its new leads well, if shortchanging some of its ideas and guest cast in the process. Overall, a solid introduction to a new books range and Doctor.

Recommended pre-reading: None.

***

Vampire Science is a book that cannot be divorced from its context. As the second EDA, and the first in the line engaged in creating a sustainable new direction for its undeveloped Doctor and companion, it has a lot to do. What follows is, essentially, 280 pages of pilot material, and the book lives or dies based on how well that material works for you.

Structurally, this is well done. The first chapter in particular is a marvel, written as its own self-contained short from the perspective of guest character Carolyn. It succeeds tremendously, showcasing business as usual for the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones and freeing up the rest of the book to get under the hood a bit more. The choice of setting this section in a lesbian bar is immediately engaging and fresh, it must be said; there’s still not enough sapphic content in Who two decades later! And beyond that, framing Sam through Carolyn’s crushing gaze is a strong way to reintroduce this new companion, as well as to define Carolyn’s later dynamic with both characters. After a taste of self-contained adventure, Carolyn misses out on life as a companion, setting up the main concern of this book: what does it take to be a Doctor Who lead in this new era? The rest of the book exists to find answers, and as is expected from these authors, the findings intruige.

From here, the book builds itself around challenging who this new Doctor and Sam are. Primarily, this comes from their relationships with Carolyn and new UNIT head Adrienne Kramer. The Doctor is immediately set in contast to his predecessor, who knew Kramer, winging it and hyperfocusing on resolving minor struggles and emotional crises rather than master plans. For me, the best moments of this book come when he gets distracted from the plot to buy ice cream, or cook breakfast, or arrange funerals for bit players. Meanwhile, instead of the typical first trip beats familiar to new series fans, Carolyn’s dilemma of whether to choose her life with her husband or travels with the Doctor helps fuel an arc about whether or not Sam really wants to be the companion, a decision I have been lead to believe is far less developed in the preceeding book. Additionally, Kramer and vampire Joanna Harris challenge Sam on how prepared she is for this, with the latter confronting Sam over political correctness in a standout scene.

The open-ended responses to these character questions are generally the strongest parts of the book. For the Doctor, whether his fiercely small-scale view is more humane or more dangerous is left in the air, through application of emotional realism to the consequences of his recklessness in comparison to his predecessor’s manipulations. He may be there to fix your marriage or make sure you get a good night’s sleep, but he might also forget you at a Greenpeace rally for a year. The book even directly questions the audience on whether they’d prefer “Someone who knows exactly what he’s doing and has it all under control, or some fellow who makes it up as he goes along, and still makes it happen”, suggesting him to be the former, though with hints of the latter still present for readers to seize upon if they wish, particularly in the final plot resolution. This all sets up a rewarding model for characterization, as well as a tension for future writers to play with.

Sam, meanwhile, gets a bit more closure, but only enough to get her to a new starting point. Her ultimately realizing that she chose to travel with the Doctor so that her political ideals wouldn’t just be all privileged talk is interesting, giving her a strong call to action without making her seem preachy or naive. There’s plenty of debate that can be had over whether the role of Doctor Who companion particularly qualifies as praxis, but it works well at giving her a proactive role in the series. Her role in the climax to the book is pleasantly grueling, as well, putting her in a visceral fight-or-flight situation against a particularly deadly and unstable vampire to prove herself to herself and the reader. It’s easily the tensest and most horrifying moment here, and as is frequently the case for putting Who leads through the wringer, she emerges stronger for it.

Beyond these successes, the story starts to reveal its limitations. The debate between Sam and the Doctor over whether the vampires deserve sympathy and to be saved, for example, fizzles out without practical solution. There’s sharp choices there, such as putting Sam against the saving of their lives despite her beliefs, but it’s slender enough to start to feel stiltedd. The plot of creating a human blood substitute, the center of this debate, is a bit of a disappointment; the concept of a human blood farm is suitably horrifying, but undercooked here. The book struggles to substantiate why Joanna Harris is worthy of redemption while also arguing that she’s created an entire sentient species to exploit, no matter how efficiently unpleasant the antagonist, Slake, is, to draw attention away. Harris’ final redemption is one of the book’s most interesting moments, but I’m not entirely convinced of all the groundwork. I can’t fault the ambition of the debate, but I’m sure the book is up to the task, especially not when it has so much else to do.

This same issue reflects even worse on the plot with Dr. Shackle, a depressed doctor manipulated by Harris into contemplating suicide and, eventually, vampirism. While it’s hard to picture a version of this book not featuring a character getting turned, my personal feeling is that a depressed character being driven to self-harm is a plot that deserves more breathing room than it can possibly have in a book that’s busy establishing what will go on to be a 73-installment range. As a result, it feels a bit crass to me, and choosing to end the book not on the establishing of the Doctor and Sam, nor Carolyn’s PoV, but rather Shackle contemplating suicide by sunlight, feels a little tasteless to me. For such a warm, witty, and enjoyable book, it felt very out of place as a closing note.

Overall, then, Vampire Science is a qualified success. It succeeds where it matters most, creating sustainable characters and storytelling modes for a long-running book line and sprinkling in enough genuinely compelling ideas to function on its own terms. It also oozes charm, from strawberry ice cream to vampire crack squirrels. But it can only go so far with even its best ideas, and it’s clear the best of the range lies ahead, not here.

It’s good. But as far as Orman and Blum go on this range, I’ll take Unnatural History over it any day.

7/10

Virgin New Adventures – No Future

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Written by Paul Cornell.

Virgin New Adventure book 23.

Spoiler-free verdict: A frothy evolution of Virgin’s vision of Doctor Who into principles of feminist fandom and political activism, and a fun and emotional story to boot, if a little mispaced in the plot.

Recommended pre-reading: Love and War, Deceit, Blood Heat, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, Conundrum.

***

For a series that birthed itself with two major plot arcs, Timewyrm and Cat’s Cradle, the Virgin books have grown light on long-form storytelling. The Alternate History Cycle, beginning with Blood Heat, has been something of a much-needed shakeup, and on the whole, No Future is an utterly wonderful bit of closure.

For those just joining in, the last few books have revolved around a figure messing with the timelines, creating alternate realities which the Seventh Doctor, Bernice Summerfield, and Ace are forced to clean up after. This has been used to draw out several new conflicts in the team, some more organic than others. On the more forced end of things, Ace and Benny have increasingly gone at each other’s throats, something which has provided many frustrating moments, and continues to here, but also some real triumphs, including many of my favorite moments of the previous book, Conundrum. Mostly, this serves Ace as a character; “New Ace” has been a famously prickly prospect for both writers and readers, and so by putting her into conflict with Bernice, these issues can be externalised and resolved through repairing her relationships. Meanwhile, both companions are put into a place of questioning the Doctor, mostly built on his destruction of the alternate universe from Blood Heat, which over the course of the arc serves as a sort of exorcism of the inadequately addressed destruction of a solar system at the climax to The Pit.

If this sounds like a lot of clean-up work, that’s because it mostly is. No Future takes on these conflicts in order to establish a sort of clean playing field for the series going forward. On the whole, it succeeds at this very well. Ace’s surrogate companion relationship with the Meddling Monk (unsurprisingly, the Time Lord responsible for mucking with history), while a ruse to play both him and the Doctor, serves to highlight her needs as a time-traveller. And both she and Benny get to have a go at experiencing what it’s like to be the Doctor through the brilliant choice of faking his death; Ace gets to pull the strings in arranging these machinations, and while thinking he’s dead, Benny gets to briefly serve as the frothy adventurer the Doctor once was and illustrate a different kind of hero. The Doctor gets a little bit less, having been thoroughly interrogated by Kate Orman’s The Left-Handed Hummingbird, but there’s some wonderful payoff for both him and Ace in regards to that book’s themes, of whether the Warrior can become the Healer. The answers are complicated but meaningful, and it’s no wonder that provides a thematic basis for numerous new series episodes.

That isn’t to say all the character is successful. Though Ace gets much-needed and quite beautiful development, particularly in the first and last thirds of the book, in the lengthy middle section, the nature of the plate-spinning plot means that her motivations are murky, and thus her emotional interiority largely disappears. This isn’t a total wash, as there’s some gorgeous scenes between her and Benny’s anarchist bandmate Danny Pain allowing her to vent away from the Doctor and Benny. The plot shares these issues. Major reveals like Artemis the Chronovore or the Brigadier’s true allegiances are held back far longer than needed, resulting in a deneument to the book that grinds to a halt for the Doctor to explain everything for a few pages.

In a lesser book, pacing issues like this would be fatal, and they have been to several past New Adventures. But Paul Cornell is too talented to leave this slack middle space empty. This book is awash with meaningful ideas and aesthetics to keep things moving in meaningful ways. For a start, it continues the engagements with metafiction from Conundrum to comment on Doctor Who, both with the hilariously rubbish Vardans manipulating media space and with the Monk using Artemis to edit Doctor Who stories to get his victory. The opening chapter is a particular triumph in this regard, the Monk watching a fairly stereotypical action adventure result in the brutal death of Ace.

Metafiction for metafiction’s sake is fun, as Conundrum illustrated. But No Future’s engagement with punk and politics takes it a step further, utilizing metafiction to make a political statement on what Doctor Who can be. Some of this happens in small ways, such as Ace complimenting Danny’s “this machine kills fascists” line, or Ace shooting the Queen, or… well, anything with Ace, really, who returns to her “bring down the government” Cartmel roots. Benny joining an anarchist punk band similarly delights, as does Captain Mike Yates’ ascension into anarchy and studded leather. There’s also a delightful acknowledgement of Who fan culture in general, with the Doctor becoming a hero of rumor in fanzines. But some of it cuts deeper and rawer, particularly the more queer and feminist sections. Ace’s story comes down to a sapphically-tinged relationship with the beautiful Artemis, who she frees from being chained to a bed (and who Vardan Pike eagerly ships with Ace), a dynamic which allows her to take total control of the narrative and heal her broken heart.

But for me, the best moment of all is in a little anecdote from Danny about errors made romancing a rape victim. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, a case of a man pushing too hard and hurting someone vulnerable out of not knowing when to shut up and respect boundaries. Ordinarily, telling this story from the perspective of the man approaching the victim is a horrible choice. But the sheer tenderness, the focus on the victim’s needs, and the way failing to help someone in need makes Danny feel like a monster results in something that took my breath away, a gorgeous little moment of humanity. It’s feminist, but it’s feminism from the perspective of the way people can unknowingly perpetuate toxic masculinity, a perspective Who damn well needs, given how long it’s been a man-dominated world (and in many ways continues to be). Moments like this push No Future into something forward-looking and vital, exactly what’s needed after the first ever woman-written Who novel in The Left-Handed Hummingbird.

And that’s the real triumph of No Future: the way it repairs and looks forward. As befits the seasonal theming of summer, this book is about brushing away the wounds and the cold and embracing a frothier, frockier, more feminist future for Doctor Who. It feels like a long time since one of these books ended with the Doctor and friends, heading off on another great adventure, but for once, in the shining light of summer, that’s exactly what’s needed. It’s a step forward into a bright future.

9/10